Why so Serious?

[Snakeguy101]

I caught my eyelash viper smiling nicely for me. Let me know what you think. All C&C is greatly appreciated.

 

[fjrabon]

looks a little blown out to me by a slightly to hot flash, which caused a little detail of the mouth to be lost.

 

[Joel_W]

Nice composition. Interesting colors on that snake. I would have already died of another heart attack if I bumped into him. Being a Viper, does that make him venomous?

I have to agree with Frjabon, that your flash caused a real hot spot issue from the eye down on the head. I'm sure you can re-edit it to take care of that issue.

 

[Snakeguy101]

All of the details are still there- it is not blown out but I see what you mean by it being a little bright. I tried playing with it some but to me, it does not look right. Here is the edit. Is this any better?

 

[Trever1t]

My first impression was that the light from under his chin is too hot. I think the edit might be a slight improvement but would need to compare side by side. Perhaps a little contrast reduction? Other than that it's an awesome image, nicely posed and great colors, background.

 

[Joel_W]

The edit is somewhat better, and I can see the detail. It's there. Still an outrageous image. You're a bravier man then I. That's for sure.

 

[fjrabon]

here is what I did with it in Post, to give you an idea what I was talking about. A little hard to work given the JPEG, but I think you'll get the idea. Not saying my suggestion is right and yours is wrong, but this way you'll at least know what I was talking about.


DSC_5323 by franklinrabon, on Flickr

 

[cgipson1]

Beautiful Herp! The edit is improved... you toned down the highlights nicely! Difficult with those large reflective areas, unless you use a large light source. Overall brightness still seems a bit much on my calibrated monitor.. a bit darker, and some saturation might make those wonderful colors pop a bit more.

Did you shoot that with the SB-R200s?

 

[Snakeguy101]

Yes, this was shot using the R200's. Let's try this one more time. I brought the highlights in some more and added definition to the mouth- I think it worked nicely this time and still looks natural.

 

[Joel_W]

Snackgguy101, I prefer Frankin's edit as his colors just seem to pop. BTW, I'm assuming that the snake is poisonous?

 

[fjrabon]

Yes, this was shot using the R200's. Let's try this one more time. I brought the highlights in some more and added definition to the mouth- I think it worked nicely this time and still looks natural.

View attachment 11099

One other thing I meant to mention is that on my monitor, I can tell there's a tiny bit of stuff in the background, just enough to be distracting, since it's so close to full black. But you can easily fix it by sliding the black point just a tad bit to the right.

 

[Snakeguy101]

Snackgguy101, I prefer Frankin's edit as his colors just seem to pop. BTW, I'm assuming that the snake is poisonous?

I want to keep the colors as close to natural as possible. I took this picture to show what her babies will look like so I cannot fudge the colors too much or I will have some pissed off buyers when they get babies that look nothing like the picture. Yes, she is venomous- there is no such thing as a poisonous snake.

One other thing I meant to mention is that on my monitor, I can tell there's a tiny bit of stuff in the background, just enough to be distracting, since it's so close to full black. But you can easily fix it by sliding the black point just a tad bit to the right.

Thanks. My monitor has not been calibrated so I can't see it but I will give that a shot.

 

[fjrabon]

Snackgguy101, I prefer Frankin's edit as his colors just seem to pop. BTW, I'm assuming that the snake is poisonous?

I want to keep the colors as close to natural as possible. I took this picture to show what her babies will look like so I cannot fudge the colors too much or I will have some pissed off buyers when they get babies that look nothing like the picture. Yes, she is venomous- there is no such thing as a poisonous snake.

One other thing I meant to mention is that on my monitor, I can tell there's a tiny bit of stuff in the background, just enough to be distracting, since it's so close to full black. But you can easily fix it by sliding the black point just a tad bit to the right.

Thanks. My monitor has not been calibrated so I can't see it but I will give that a shot.

Yeah, not knowing what the snake actually looks like, it was hard to make the edit, as I couldn't tell what was real color and what was the lighting.

 

[Ernicus]

First thing I noticed when editing it is that you are using Adobe RGB (1998) as your color space. So that could explain the differences some are seeing.

All I did in my edit was kill the highlights...so came out kinda like dude above only less contrasty. You mention wanting not to mess with colors so your customers won't be upset. I could be wrong, but no one has touched the colors, only the highlights/brightness/levels...etc. No one is being "fancy" trying to edit it to make it look cooler.

One thing to note, when adjusting levels and highlights, it can make the colors stand out more even mess with the overall contrast of the image. Use my edits for example. The first one all I did was kill highlights...adjust the tonal width of the highlights. No more. Yet it seems the colors deepened and are rich and vibrant.

Not having ever seen this snake in person..it may not look like that. Knowing that such adjustments can make the colors "appear" differently, I reduced the saturation in my second edit to probly (totally guessing) closer to what the snake looks like.

In your original image, your highlights are blown out as stated. Not sure why you felt the need to negate that. All that means is that they (the highlights) are too bright/white to see the detail....especially in the area you were wanting people to notice...the smile.

*edit*
oh....I also burned the background out to make it all black, as soon as I converted the colorspace to normal I saw the things in back he was talking about. rather than adjust levels, which would affect saturation, I just burned them out with the history bruch, therefore not affecting the colors of the snake.

Cool looking snake btw, I like it a lot.

 

[Snakeguy101]

Thank you, how do I change it to normal from the adobe RBG? What software were you using? I use Aperture but also have CS5 if I need it.